Justice For Tegu! Attainable or Just a ‘Social Media’ War?

On the Sunday Night (June 27^th 2020) Emmanuel Tegu a third year Veterinary Medicine student at Makerere University was brutally beaten by a mob, like the Police states, at Lumumba Hall inside Makerere  University that had allegedly mistaken him for a thief.

In the middle of that grief, rumours started to circulate claiming that the Local Defence Unit (LDU) personnel had beaten the late Tegu to death but the Police quickly dismissed the rumours stating authoritatively that, no single LDU personnel is deployed at Makerere University.

This of course means that the university is manned by the good ordinary Police force and/or private security arms. The Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesperson Patrick Onyango said that the police are investigating a case of murder and the reason as to why Tegu was out late that night.

According to his communication to the press, the Police rushed Tegu to Mulago Hospital but he breathed his last after getting admitted. Tegu’s family, on the other hand, insists that the Police beat him to death claiming that Tegu confessed to that before his last breath.

Colleagues, former classmates and friends, and the general public later took up arms and demanded that the alleged killers (LDUs) be disarmed and taken off the streets. For about a week, the hashtag #JusticeForTegu trended on social media platform Twitter as the public bayed for the blood of his killers. Ironic, right?

Then there was the disagreement after the release of the CCTV footage from St Augustine Chapel in Makerere that captured the whole scene on the night that Tegu was brutally beaten.

The Police had first refused to release it to the press claiming that it had gross imagery not good for the public. And of course this had to bring many people out including the People Power spokesperson, Joel Sennyonyi who tasked them to avail the footage that was recorded.

The footage was later released by the Church but it raised more questions than answers instead. The missing piece, footage from Centenary Bank, that could have shed more light was never released. The explanation was that CCTV on the Bank wasn’t working that particular night.

This week, on Monday 13 July 2020, Makerere students staged a demonstration near Parliament over their late colleague’s death. Clearly, they are not satisfied with the investigations of the case but who is?

Not even the demonstration by former Makerere University Research Fellow Dr. Stella Nyanzi was enough to provide the necessary answers. The social media calls for justice are also slowly burning out everyday that goes by.

I ask therefore, at this rate, do you think Justice For Tegu is still attainable?